Europe needs to own its own weapon production pipeline, rather than depending on a supplier who may cut them off at any time.
I don't know how much of a killswitch the US has on their hardware. What if you use a plane of theirs in a way they don't approve of?
I'd be wary of buying complex US hardware.
They can just stop supplying you with spare parts and the plane will not stay flying for very long.
This is something that's always boggles my mind as an American.
Why would any other country rely on us for military equipment instead of working on their own? Yeah it costs money to setup, but even in highschool I knew enough to know the US has, to put it lightly, done shady shit to its allies. Hell, it's own people.
Why would anyone trust that they'll always be an ally? Especially when Republicans are in charge and make international cooperation even more of a joke than usual.
I want the EU to be self sufficient not because I think they suck and should be paying out the ass, like the magats do, but because when the US government decides they don't want to play with the other kids anymore, they can't take the proverbial ball home with them.
Why would any other country rely on us for military equipment instead of working on their own? Yeah it costs money to setup, but even in highschool I knew enough to know the US has, to put it lightly, done shady shit to its allies. Hell, it’s own people.
think about what spending in defense has done to our economy. healthcare, education, social services cost money. Basically since FDR the defense budget has grown decade after decade.
I agree about EU independence though, it's a valid point.
France is self sufficient since during WW2 the US tried to force Churchill to stop supporting Charles De Gaulle and instead support a more easily controllable puppet (François Darlan). US was really close to succeed but Darlan's murder forced the US to finally accept against their will De Gaulle.
De Gaulle learned it and after the war he turned the country into anti-US politic with a complete and self sufficient army and a completely autonomous nuclear program ( UK still need US approve to use their nuke).
Europe is moderately self sufficient, but only for tactical level operations. No-one wanted to break the understanding on strategic level capabilities.
Europe has a long pattern on that front. Large scale militaries rarely sit idle for long. With multiple nuclear powers in play, that genie has been kept mostly bottled up for 75 years.
It's also worth noting that I don't think the UK, France and Germany (previously Prussia) have ever been on the same side in a large scale hot conflict. Figuring out how to do it, without it imploding in 20 years is a challenge. The original plan was NATO, but Russia has managed to neuter that via Trump.
Why would any other country rely on us for military equipment instead of working on their own? Yeah it costs money to setup
It costs a ton of money, especially research and development into high tech weapons. Very few countries for example even have the technology to build blades for jet turbines. There's half a dozen companies world wide that have the capability to make jet engines. Or even seemingly much simpler: making good ball bearings is surprisingly difficult and are required for lots of things. High quality optics? Extremely hard.
A weapons system pretty much all countries can assembly is the technical: a pickup truck with a heavy machine gun bolted to it. Making a car or a machine gun is already difficult and few countries have the metallurgy, precision engineering, trained workforce, etc. to make all the parts for them. The microelectronics and chips in the radio? Also not easy to make.
The supply chain is long, even for relatively simple systems. The more advanced the system, the fewer parts the local industry will be capable of producing.
R&D costs will be spread out over all production units. So if research costs 100 million, but you only build 20, it will be a hundred times more expensive than if you build 2000. That's how the F-35 is more capable and cheaper than previous generation fighter jets.
So to build your own stuff, you need to a fairly advanced and diversified industrial base in the first place. On top of that you need money and a big enough number of units for it to be financially viable.
Sweden makes its own fighter jet JAS 39 Gripen. However it imports the engines, electronics, radar, and some other essential parts from the USA. That somewhat better for Sweden because it keeps some of the money spent in the local economy and keeps a trained workforce around. It doesn't create strategic independence from the US though.
We've got it all at the Europoruium war machines emporium
The Europorium – Where Power Meets Precision!
Your One-Stop Shop for the Best European Military Vehicles!
We got leopards, bulldogs, zippy french boy, zippy Swedish boy, cv90,mlrs, zippy franko German tiger, cv90, hail Caesar boom boy,cv90.
All at the low low price of fuck around and find out
Cv90 sold separately
Is the promo of buy one, get a free Wiesel still on?
I have no idea what this means but I appreciate the non-credibility of whatever it's trying to convey 👍
The first panel shows US made weapons such as the M1 Abrams tank, the Patriot surface-to-air missile system (here mounted onto a German made MAN gl truck), M142 HIMARS system (mounted onto a US made M1140 truck), the F-16, the
F-35F-15 or a Virginia class submarine, systems that "the US" thinks the European nations will buy when they invest into their military.The second panel shows European made weapon systems, such as the Leopard 2 tank, the IRIS-T SLM system (again on MAN), the SAMP/T Aster system (mounted onto a Renault 8×4 truck),
Saab Jas 39 GripenRafale, Eurofighter Typhoon or the future French SNLE 3G submarine, systems, that the Europeans probably will buy instead.Also, the Dutch army has indicated it has no fucking clue where to spend all that additional money. They would quite literally drown in money. (NRC, mirror, both Dutch sources)
Edit: but yes, if the EU is to spend more money on defense, it should be spent in the EU, not sent to the American weapon lobby.
The countries who have made more wars than any other, but have been in peace for some decades:
"Fine, we'll stop pretending being nice, lets get back to the old days. But together this time."
the speech of Laurent Fabius that tried to turn France into something it is not:
"It's time to receive the peace dividend"
France is historically a warmonger and it's not healthy for a country not to accept what they are so it's time for the whole world to eat baguette. a baguette for you, and for you and a funny mushroom baguette for you because you have been nasty: baguettes for everyone!
Does Airbus, now Eurocopter, still do military stuff? I heared somewhere they dont anymore
They still do, they do military aircraft, drones and helicopters.
JATO Spooky A380's with parasite tigers..... I cannot confirm nor deny knowledge of the existence of plans for any such aircraft....
Guess i'll be seeing it when it does test flights.
I live close to one of their big factories and testing grounds
Airbus is still active in the military industry: https://www.airbus.com/en/products-services/defence
